Here are the 50 hottest fintech firms in Europe right now

The Ethereum blockchain protocol and community has been included on the list as the one global exception in recognition of its status as a potentially disruptive worldwide phenomenon. All other companies are Europe-based as the organizers FinTechCity also plan to run a separate Asia list later this year.

Chosen from a long-list of over 1,500 companies across Europe, up from 1,200 last year, the Fintech50 2017 list, “features 24 businesses that are new,” says founding director, Julie Lake.

The list is compiled in-house and then adjudicated on by a 63-strong judging panel that includes leading names such as Alastair Lukies, non-executive chairman of Innnovate Finance, and the U.K prime minister’s business ambassador for fintech.

Some other names on the 2017 FinTech50 list include:

Advice Robo (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

AQMetrics (Kildare, Ireland)

Behaviosec (Stockholm, Sweden)

DarkTrace (Cambridge, U.K.)

Figo (Hamburg, Germany)

MarketInvoice (London, U.K.)

Meniga (Rejkyavik, Iceland)

Onfido (London, U.K.)

PayKey (Tel Aviv, Israel)

Qumram (Zurich, Switzerland)

Revolut (London, U.K.)

Suade (London, U.K.)

As can be seen U.K. companies dominate the list but German, Swiss and Irish fintechs have made their strongest ever showing in 2017. The trend may be reinforced in future years if the U.K.’s vote to exit the European Union (EU) means that the post-Brexit country can no longer access the single European market from 2019 onwards or easily import the skilled computer scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs or technologists it needs to maintain its lead. This depends on how the final Brexit negotiations play out, but is a potential threat hanging over the future prosperity of U.K. fintech.

Hot 10 growth prospects

The separate “Hot Ten” list of smaller fintechs which are at an earlier stage of development but in the opinion of the organizers FinTechCity offer huge growth potential, was also released Tuesday in London. It includes names such as ClearBank (U.K.); Governance.io (Luxembourg); Meteo Project (France); Nxchange (Netherlands); and Bud (U.K.).

The other names on the 2017 “Hot Ten” list of growing fintechs to look out for are:

Cleo (U.K.)

Datasine (U.K.)

Deposify (Ireland)

Post Quantum (U.K.)

10x Future Technologies (U.K.)

Julie Lake, founding director of the FinTech50 list, said in conversation with CNBC that, “of the 24 new companies this year some are relatively new businesses but are already experiencing strong growth, or considerable interest in their product. Unsurprisingly, these companies are often working ‘with’ financial institutions in areas which could improve efficiency or customer services.”